When comparing Leadwerks Game Engine vs GameMaker Studio 2, the Slant community recommends GameMaker Studio 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?”GameMaker Studio 2 is ranked 74th while Leadwerks Game Engine is ranked 77th.

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Pros

Pro

Built-in level editor

Has an acceptable 3D map editor that is easy to use.

Pro

Versatile flow diagram script model

Leadwerks's flowgraphs resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish.

Pro

Handful of Prefabs and Scripts

For example, you take a model (e.g. torch), add a light source to it, add a particle generator (for fire) and save it as a prefab (one file). Then this prefab can be used to add many torches with fire and light.

Pro

Quick prototyping

Pro

Good user interface

Pro

Well-optimized engine

Pro

Has a trial version (but limited functions, can't export)

Pro

Many unofficial tutorials

Most GMS1 tutorials are fine for GMS2

Pro

Highly customizable IDE

Although users must work within the IDE and editor, GMS2 has many options to customize the look and feel

Pro

Good documentation

Pro

Huge, generous community

Cons

Con

Very buggy

Leadworks is a not complete, it's a work in progress. As such many parts of the engine are clunky, especially the level editor.

Con

Documentation and support are limited for non-coders

The flowgraph editor can be used with free script assets to build games without writing any code, but this is not directly intended or encouraged by Leadwerks.

Con

Highly misleading advertising

Con

Not the best scripting language out there

GML is just weird; if you want to learn programming, it is not the best because it teaches bad habits and has many odd shortcuts and shortcomings that won't transfer to a real language

Con

HTML5 export is buggy, doesn't "just work"

Con

Quite expensive

Windows ($100) + HTML5 ($140) + Mobile ($400) + UWP ($400) is $1,050, plus $800 anually for each console export separately. But doesn't do anything any of the free engines can't do, and the stability and tech support aren't great.

Con

Unstable

Users frequently report crashes and hangs, particularly when working with assets, and the software uses a complicated underlying meta-file structure that may become corrupted and cannot be rebuilt

Con

Limited support for OOP

Con

Small development team

The core programming team is only 5-10 people, with about 30 employees total, so bug fixes can take a long time to be addressed, and there aren't many official tutorials